


Nesting

by isabeau25



Series: A Wing and a Prayer [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Team as Family, Wing AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:59:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12106245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau25/pseuds/isabeau25
Summary: Keith takes a chance on building a permanent nest. The rest of the team approves.





	Nesting

**Author's Note:**

> From the flower prompts I was taking for my 100 followers celebration, given to me by [Eastofthemoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Eastofthemoon/pseuds/Eastofthemoon): _violet (white) : let’s take a chance for your Wing AU_ (somewhat loosely interpreted).
> 
> Based on these[Wing AU head canons](https://headcanonaday.tumblr.com/tagged/wings-au), specifically [this one](https://headcanonaday.tumblr.com/post/161120659301/voltron-au-wings-04).

“Pidge get back here! You haven’t preened your wings in a week!”

Keith sidestepped with practiced ease as Pidge raced past him. The hall wasn’t wide enough to accommodate their wing span, not even Pidge’s, and she was forced to run. As was Lance, who was chasing her.

This had become a normal part of their weekly routine, and Keith stayed pressed against the wall, wings folded tightly against his back. Lance ran past him full speed. It was inevitable that he would catch her; his legs were longer, and if they actually made it to a space large enough to fly, Lance was faster and a more experienced flyer, although Pidge would give him a run for his money.

Keith suspected they both just liked the chase.

“Did he catch her?” Hunk poked his head out of Lance’s room, already in his pajamas and ready for bed.

“Not yet,” Keith stepped away from the wall, “I think Pidge was making a break for the rec room.”

“That didn’t work last time, but at least the ceiling is tall enough to fly,” Hunk grinned.

Keith snickered and headed towards his room.

“You want to come in for a while?” Hunk asked, “I could preen your wings for you if you want, or you could just hang out. Our nest is kind of messy, but it’s comfy.”

Keith hesitated at his door. The rooms Allura had given them weren’t exactly designed for occupants with wings. They were cramped and not that comfortable, but they were all making do in their own way. Within two days of being on the castle ship, Hunk and Lance had pooled resources, putting together a makeshift nest on the floor of Lance’s room. Keith wasn’t sure what Pidge had done, but she seemed to fall asleep wherever she was when she ran out of energy, so it probably didn’t matter. Shiro might just not sleep, which was an entirely different kind of problem.

Keith hadn’t bothered trying to improve his room. The bed was manageable, if not terribly comfortable, and he figured it was just another stop along the way. He had made do most of his life and learned quickly there was no use settling into a place you wouldn’t be for long.

“Yeah, let me take a quick shower,” Keith keyed open his door, “I’ll be over in about ten minutes.”

Shiro kept telling him he needed to make an effort to be more social with the rest of the team, and it was kind of nice to have someone else preen his wings for a change.

There was an ear splitting screech from the direction of the rec room that meant Lance had caught Pidge.

“Maybe fifteen,” Keith amended.

Hunk laughed and nodded, “they should be past the screeching by then.”

It was closer to twenty minutes when Keith made it to their room, still towel drying his hair. Lance was in the nest of mattresses and pillows with Pidge pinned between his legs, scolding her for not taking care of her wings as he preened them.

“Keith, tell him to let me go,” Pidge huffed, her wings puffed to their fullest.

“Not in charge, not my job,” Keith grinned, but he reached down to get her tablet where it had fallen on the edge of the nest and handed it to her.

“Come here, I’ll preen your wings while they’re still damp,” Hunk motioned him over to the bed where he was sitting out of reach of Lance and Pidge’s ongoing struggle.

“Thanks,” Keith stepped over blankets and cushions to get to him, settling in front of him.

Keith was surprised how little structure their nest had. Hunk was an engineer, and Keith would have expected something a little sturdier with him involved, but really it was more a pile of blankets and pillows in a general nest shape. They probably knocked it around in their sleep and had to rebuild it every night.

Not many people had to build their own nests anymore, so he supposed it wasn’t that surprising they didn’t really know how. He had built himself a nest in the desert shack, eventually. It had felt like giving up, like admitting defeat, that he was somehow surrendering to the emptiness and absence, but there were scorpions and snakes that sometimes found their way into the shack, and he had needed a safe place to sleep.

Pidge squawked indignantly and flapped her fluffy wings, trying to escape Lance’s hold, but he wrapped around her like an octopus and chirped at her like she was a particularly exasperating fledging.

“Hold still,” Lance scolded, “your wings are a mess. If you keep this up, you won’t be able to fly.”

“I fly just fine,” Pidge scowled.

“Yeah, that’s why I keep catching you,” Lance rolled his eyes.

Pidge whacked him in the head with one of her wings, to no effect at all. Lance just adjusted his grip and went back to preening.

Hunk seemed immune to the racket they were making and continued to work steadily on Keith’s wings. It was nice, actually, even all the noise Lance and Pidge were making. It filled the corners and nooks and crannies, leaving no room for emptiness.

As Hunk lulled him into a half-sleep, the thought drifted through Keith’s head that building a nest here might not feel quite so much like losing.

* * *

Keith found the webbing in a disused storage closet. Flexible, sturdy, and similar to the material seatbelts were made of, it seemed just about perfect. He had been scavenging for what he needed for so long that it didn’t occur to him to actually ask before he took it. Then he found out nothing short of his bayard would cut it, and that seemed a little overkill. Coran would probably know something that could cut it more accurately and with less effort, and that was when it occurred to Keith that he probably should have asked before taking it.

He came to Coran with the end he had cut off, and his wings a little fluffier than usual in sheepishness. Coran didn’t even bat an eye.

“Ah, vartinian strauthanger,” Coran grinned at him, “you could lift a lion with just a dozen straps of it. It’s a wonder your bayard got through it at all.”

“Is it okay if I use it?” Keith tilted his head to the side to watch Coran dive head first into a large tool chest, tossing things out in random directions.

“Of course,” Coran waved a hand dismissively without straightening, “it’s still quite common. We can always get more.”

“Thanks,” Keith’s wings smoothed and settled more comfortably against his back.

“What are you doing with it?” Coran straightened with something that looked very much like a box knife in his hand.

“Just… stuff,” Keith rubbed the back of his head self-consciously.

“If you were number five, that would worry me,” Coran handed him the box knife, “don’t burn yourself with that.”

“I won’t,” Keith flicked the button on the handle and the edge of the knife glowed blue, “thanks.”

“Any time number four,” Coran said cheerfully, “just don’t try to lift the lions with it. We have better equipment for doing that.”

“I’ll remember that,” Keith wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but it was good to know the webbing was that strong; he certainly wasn’t planning on putting anything like that kind of load on it.

* * *

Keith wasn’t sure why, but he kept his project hidden in the large drawer under his bed. It wasn’t like anyone would care. The Alteans never came into the area their living quarters were in, and with the exception of Shiro, the others had all built nests, makeshift though they were. They probably wouldn’t have even batted an eye at the one Keith was putting together. Maybe.

What Pidge called a nest was actually just a pile of blankets along the edge of her bed, turning the alcove into something vaguely nest-like. She tossed her pillows around haphazardly until she was comfortably, and called it good. The nest Lance and Hunk shared was even messier and less able to stand up to a night’s sleep. Shiro hadn’t even tried. Compared to that, Keith felt like he was putting a lot of effort into this.

Although, to be fair, it should have only taken him a few days to do the whole thing, but he kept getting interrupted. Weaving the straps together to form what amounted to a large basket had been fairly quick, but sewing the edges around the thick wire that made up the rim had taken a while. Plus, he had had to go to Coran for string that was strong enough and a needle that could actually go through the material, then he had run out of string and had to wait for Coran to synthesis more.

In that time span, they freed three planets, stopped a very strange Galra experiment that seemed to be trying to use snail-like slime from a planet’s local fauna to create a super weapon, almost caused an interplanetary war, because apparently using the right hand at the dinner table was a problem some places, and Keith discovered hooks that seemed to attach to any surface of the castle.

They were in an equipment locker, being used to hold up a net full of heavy equipment. There was a whole box of them on the top shelf. He had to go to Pidge, though, to make sure he was using them right.

“Oh yeah,” Pidge glanced at the box, “they’re easy to put up. Just press them against a wall or ceiling and they stick, as long as you’re in the castle, anyway. They won’t work outside of it, although they will hold on with a total castle shut down. It’s really fascinating, actually. I think it’s some kind of nano technology, but it could be crystals, too. I’ve been meaning to take a closer look at them, but I keep getting distracted.”

Pidge picked one up from the box, eyeing the flat base more closely, then gave a sad sigh, “I need like a hundred lifetimes to figure out all this Altean tech. What are you doing with them?”

“Hanging stuff,” Keith shrugged.

“Well, it’s a little overkill if you’re just hanging clothes or something,” Pidge dropped it in the box, “they’ll hold up 100 kilos each, easy.”

“Is everything the Alteans make made for heavy lifting?” Keith asked.

“Pretty much,” Pidge grinned, “I would say they over engineer, except the way they do it is always so elegant and clever.”

“If you say so,” they just looked like hooks to Keith.

“Anyway,” Pidge popped open a drawer in her workbench, “you need a special tool to get them off if you want to move them,” she rummaged around until she found what looked like a small chisel and held it out to him, “just scrap them off. You have to use this or they won’t budge.”

“Thanks,” Keith took the chisel from her.

“Welcome,” Pidge waved him away, “give one of the hooks to Lance, would you? He was looking for something to hang stuff from his ceiling with, and that would probably work.”

“Sure,” Keith agreed, wondering what Lance was hanging on his ceiling.

Probably not the same thing Keith was.

* * *

Keith had used plywood boards last time he had built a nest. It had been easy to work with and also all he had. He didn’t know much about the materials they had on the ship though, and he didn’t know how to work with them.

That meant Hunk.

“Well, yeah,” Hunk wrinkled his nose at the sketch and measurements Keith had given him, “machining something like that is no problem, but what’s it for?”

“I need it to be light and hold weight,” Keith stretched his wings, then folded them again, still reluctant to admit what he was up to.

“How much weight?” Hunk eyed him almost suspiciously.

“My weight,” Keith said after considering, “maybe a couple of mes”

Hunk didn’t bat an eye at that. He brought up their inventory on his tablet and started scrolling through it.

“How accurate are your measurements?” Hunk asked as he looked, “I can help you measure again just to make sure we cut it right.”

“It should be fine,” Keith shook his head, wings shifting nervously again, “it doesn’t have to be that exact, just close.”

The webbing was flexible and would be easy to adjust for any small inaccuracies.

“You know that drives me crazy, right?” Hunk’s feathers fluffed slightly.

“It’s just not that sort of thing,” Keith folded his arms over his chest and hunched his shoulder.

“Right,” Hunk snorted, “accuracy isn’t important for mysterious weight bearing eggs.”

“It’s an oval,” Keith knew for a fact his sketch wasn’t that bad.

“An oval is just a malformed egg,” Hunk gave him a frank look.

Keith laughed, his shoulders dropping and wings relaxing.

* * *

In theory, putting all the pieces together should have been easy, but it never worked out that way. The room was a tight space to work in, and he had close to a dozen hooks to figure out placement for. It required borrowing a stepladder and putting up with being teased for being short.

After multiple interruptions, a minor skirmish with a small Galra fleet, and spending hours cleaning gunk out of Red’s exhaust intake, he finally managed to get the nest hung. He was just adjusting hooks when Lance walked in without knocking. Again. 

“Pidge said you have the thing for the hooks…” Lance paused to look up at the nest, then at Keith standing on a stepladder, using the chisel tool to adjust a hook, “that’s what you needed it for.”

“Um… yeah,” Keith’s wings hunched around his shoulders.

“That’s really cool,” Lance grinned, “did you make it yourself?”

“Most of it,” Keith scratched the back of his head, then had to catch his balance on the rim of the nest; the stepladder was a little wobbly, “Hunk helped with cutting out the base.”

“You want some help hanging it?” Lance asked.

Keith considered. It was a pain to have to go between the stepladder and the bed to adjust the hooks. It would be much easier with a second set of hands, and Lance didn’t look inclined to give him a hard time.

“Sure,” Keith tossed him the chisel, “I’m just trying to get the tension even.”

Lance caught the chisel and jumped up on the bed, his wings flaring slightly to adjust his balance. It only took about fifteen minutes to adjust the hooks with them tossing the chisel back and forth between them. Lance talked the whole time about the huge market they had spent the afternoon in last week. Apparently, everyone there had been impressed by his wings, and he wanted to go back.

The sad reality was, they probably wouldn’t ever be back. Not unless the planet was attacked, and Keith knew Lance wouldn’t have wanted to go back under those circumstances. They were always transients, no matter how much they liked the places they visited.

It didn’t lend itself to settling in anywhere, and maybe it was weird that Keith was even trying by taking the time to build a proper nest. He could have been doing something more productive, like training , or helping go through the reams of intel they were always trying to glean leads from.

“Do you have enough blankets and stuff?” Lance stood on his toes on the bed, leaning over the rim of the nest to see inside it.

“Yeah,” Keith adjusted the last hook and jumped down from the stepladder, “I’ll just dump everything from the bed in there.”

“Hunk and I have been hunting for extra blankets and pillows,” Lance continued to lean on the nest, “there must be some around, but they’re probably tucked away in storage somewhere. I keep meaning to ask Coran, but it always seems like he’s busy, or I’m busy, or I just forget.”

“This will be fine,” Keith held the chisel out to Lance, “you wanted this, right?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Lance tucked it into his pocket.

“You need any help?” Keith figured it was only fair to return the favor.

“No,” Lance shook his head, “I found some string lights at the last station we stopped at, and I wanted to hang them up for Hunk as a surprise. He’s not afraid of the dark, but he says if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he likes there being a little bit of light, and these are nicer than the ugly nightlight he found.”

“Hunk will like that,” Keith agreed.

“I know,” Lance gave him a cheeky grin, then headed out the door, “catch you later.”

Keith snorted and got to work putting his mattress and all his blankets and pillows into the nest. Hopefully, he would be sleeping in his own bed soon. It had been a long time since that had happened.

* * *

Keith was always tired by the time he made it to bed. He figured if he wasn’t, he probably hadn’t used his day the way he should.

His nest rocked gentle as he shifted, and even though Lance had been right that he could have used more pillows, it felt good to sink into it. It was still the same room, still the same blankets and pillows, but if felt different.

If felt cozy and safe and like he belonged there.

It also felt a bit like playing pretend. They were in the middle of a war, and at any moment, they could be called into action, left behind, lost. This wasn’t really what homes were supposed to be. He wasn’t some place stable and safe that he knew he would always be able to come back to. That wasn’t something he got to have.

He was still glad he built the nest though.

* * *

Keith was so exhausted he barely managed the jump from his bed into his nest. He still wasn’t sure why sitting in a pilot chair for hours was so tiring. He hadn’t even gotten tossed around that much.

Thanks to Hunk, he hadn’t gotten tossed around that much. Hunk and Yellow had taken some serious hits in the battle, and Hunk had ended up in the healing pod with a head injury.

Keith hated it. He was supposed to be fast, he was supposed to be the best pilot of his generation (never mind that Iverson was a liar), but Hunk had still gotten hurt protecting him. He rolled onto his back and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until he saw stars.

When he took them away, he was still seeing stars.

Someone had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to his ceiling. He stared up at their dim green light for what felt like hours, trying to figure out why they looked so familiar. He had never had stars on his ceiling before, although he remembered Shiro had had them on his.

He couldn’t quite touch the ceiling from where he was laying, but he reached his hand up anyway, using his finger to trace lines between them. It took him a while to realize he was tracing out constellations. The same constellations he had looked up at while laying on the roof of the desert shack. He had always felt better, calmer, when he had looked up at them, traced out their familiar patterns and remembered the stories that went with them.

He wondered who had stuck them there. He needed to thank them.

“Hey Keith,” the door opened, and Pidge stood uncertainly in the light from the hall, “are you awake?”

“Yeah,” he sat up, looking down at her, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” she ran her hand through her already frizzled hair, “just… can I sleep here tonight? Lance is with Shiro, and Coran locked me out of the workshop, and I could go work with the stuff in Green’s hanger, but I just… can I just sleep on the bed or something?”

“You can come up,” Keith said without hesitation.

“Thanks,” Pidge’s shoulders slumped in relief.

Keith thought she might need a hand up, but she had no trouble jumping from the bed and rolling over the edge of the nest. She flopped down gracelessly beside Keith, then rolled to her side, hiding her face in a pillow.

He pulled a blanket over her and started to sway, setting the nest to rocking gently.

“Are you trying to rock me to sleep?” Pidge peered up at him, her lips quirked in a near smile.

“I like it when it rocks,” Keith said defensively, “that’s why I hung it.”

“I like the rocking too,” Pidge grinned and grabbed his arm, tugging him down beside her, “but you should lay down. You look exhausted.”

Keith hummed in agreement and settled down beside her. He was tired, and he should try to sleep. Pidge’s breathing evened out and the swaying of the nest slowed to a stop. Everything settled into a comfortable quiet.

“Keith?” Pidge whispered, poking his arm.

Keith chirped sleepily to let her know he was listening.

“Do you like the stars?” Pidge asked, voice low, as if she was sharing a secret.

“That was you?” Keith blinked open his eyes.

“Yeah,” she ducked her head shyly.

“They’re perfect,” Keith smiled, “you got all the constellations right. Thank you.”

Pidge gave a happy little coo and snuggled closer to him. Keith stretched a wing over her and listened as her breathing evened out, then changed into soft, whistling snores.

Keith’s last thought before he drifted off to sleep was that maybe home wasn’t quite what he had thought it was.

* * *

“Hey Keith!” Hunk kicked his door to get it to open, his arms too full to knock.

“What?” Keith popped up from where he had been laying down reading, looking down at Hunk over the rim of his nest.

“We found the pillow stash,” Hunk grinned at him over a pile of blankets.

Pidge and Lance walked by behind him, pillows and blankets piled so high in their arms there was no way they could see where they were going.

“Come pick some out,” Hunk nodded his head towards them, “your nest needs more fluff.”

“Fluff?” Keith echoed as he jumped down.

“All nests have a fluff quota they should meet,” Hunk lead him across the hall to Lance’s room, where Lance and Pidge had dropped their loads.

Judging from the size of the pile, this was not the first trip they had made.

“Did you clean the whole place out?” Keith asked.

“Yep,” Lance dusted off his hands, “it’s not like anyone else was using them.”

“How do they manage to not smell musty after 10,000 years?” Pidge smashed her face into a pillow taking a deep breath, “smells like they just got out of the laundry.”

“So like nothing,” Hunk grumbled.

He had complained more than once that their clean laundry didn’t smell like clean laundry; it didn’t smell like anything at all, and he missed the smell of detergent.

“So should we just divide them up equally?” Keith started picking through the pile.

“Na,” Hunk shook his head, “take as much as you want. We're not in a barracks.”

It was starting to feel less and less like one at least, and Keith was okay with that. They started a pile for Shiro, and Keith picked out pillows of all different firmness, and played rock, paper, scissors with Lance for a fleecy blanket with red and orange swirls on it. There were two long pillows that would be good to wrap around the edge of his nest, and a pillow that felt like it was filled with beads and smelt almost like sandalwood.

His pile seemed bigger than the others’ by the time he was done, but no one protested, and Hunk helped him carry it all back to his room.

“Are you sure you don’t want some of this?” Keith asked tossing his armful up into the nest.

“Yeah,” Hunk grinned, “if Lance tries to squeeze any more pillows into our nest, we won’t fit. Hop up, I’ll hand you stuff.”

Keith hesitated, not wanting to take up too much of Hunk’s time. They didn’t get a lot of down time, and Hunk must have had things he would rather be doing then handing Keith things. He seemed pretty content though, so Keith jumped up into his nest, taking a moment to rearrange what he already threw up.

“Isn’t it hard getting to sleep with someone else there?” Keith sat on his knees, rolling up blankets to tuck into the spaces around his mattress that didn’t quite meet the edges of the nest.

“Lance and I are used to it,” Hunk waited patiently for Keith to finish fiddling with what was already in the nest, “it’s actually kind of weird for us to sleep by ourselves. We always shared nests with siblings or our parents. It’s easier to sleep with someone else there.”

“Oh,” Keith pushed a small pillow into a gap with a little more force than necessary.

Maybe he was strange then. He didn’t mind sharing his nest every once in awhile, but he slept better by himself. He always had, even when he was young. Most of the time he felt better knowing the nest was just his. Maybe that wasn’t how he was supposed to feel though.

“I think it’s just what you’re used to,” Hunk shrugged, “my oldest sister always liked having her own nest. Also, she kicks in her sleep and it hurt.”

“Can you hand me the long one?” Keith pointed, “what about Pidge?”

“She’s like 50 / 50,” Hunk handed it up to him, “sometimes she’s really clingy and wants to cuddle, and other times she pushes everyone out of the nest.”

Keith nodded, arranging the long pillow so it was upright and molded along the edge of the nest. Hunk handed him the second one without being asked.

“So, it’s not that weird either way,” Hunk continued, “just personal preference. What do you want next?”

“The orange sheet,” Keith leaned over to take it from him.

“This is a good design,” Hunk stepped up onto the bed so he could see into the nest, “nice and sturdy.”

“Thanks,” Keith moved the blankets that were already there out of the way so he could smooth the sheet over the bottom layer and tuck the edges under, “I made one kind of like this when I was in the desert.”

“When you get a chance, would you show me how?” Hunk asked.

“Really?” Keith leaned over the edge to look at him, “can you hand me the rest of the pillows?”

“Yeah,” Hunk obliged, handing them up one at a time, “I think I can use it to design a collapsible version we could keep on the lions. Lance says he found a small living space on Blue, but it has a bed like the ones here, except even narrower. This would be a lot more comfortable.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Keith arranged the pillows, changing their placement several times before he was satisfied, “I don’t mind showing you though. It’s a good idea to keep something like that in the lions. Lance was talking about wanting to inventory the supplies the lions have and making sure we keep rations stocked on them just in case.”

“He can keep that project,” Hunk snorted, “inventory is the worst.”

“It’s really useful though,” satisfied with the pillows, Keith folded the blankets that were already in the nest neatly and placed them at the foot before motioning for the other blankets, “I’m sure Coran has some kind of program that would make it easy.”

“Still leaving it up to Lance,” Hunk shook his head.

He handed Keith the last blanket and waited for him to finish folding it and hanging it over the edge.

“Can I come up?” Hunk asked.

“Yeah,” Keith scooted over to make room for him.

Hunk had more trouble than Pidge rolling over the edge of the nest, and he flopped into it with an overdramatic grunt, then lay there staring up at the ceiling. Keith grinned down at him.

“This is comfy,” Hunk smiled back, then pointed to the stars on the ceiling, “are those real constellations?”

“Yeah, Pidge put them there,” Keith signaled the light to turn off so they could see them better, “they’re the same ones I could see in the desert.”

“Bet that was a good view,” Hunk traced along the milky way with an outstretched hand, “the lights at the Garrison were lousy for stargazing, but Lance dragging me out far enough to get a good look a couple times. The milky way was pretty amazing.”

“There’s a story about a coyote and the milk way,” Keith’s brow furrowed, his wings tucking tightly around him, as if remembering too many long night spent alone.

“Yeah?” Hunk pulled him his down to lay next to him, “what was it?”

“Well, Coyote is a trickster, right…” Keith stared up at the pretend sky, tracking out the story with his finger.

As he talked, Hunk subtly shifted his wing until he could wrap it around Keith, cocooning him against his side. Keith barely seemed to notice, moving from one star story to the next, while Hunk hummed and cooed along to let him know he was listening.

It was a bit of a tight fit for the two of them, but Hunk thought it was an outstanding nest all the same.

* * *

It had been a good day. Long and hard, but no one had gotten hurt, and they had managed to keep a lot of people safe. Keith was satisfyingly tired and comfortably sore. He was ready for bed.

“Hey Keith!”

Keith stopped just short of his bedroom door, giving Hunk a questioning look.

“I need help in the kitchen,” Hunk caught Keith’s wrist, tugging him along the hallway without waiting for him to answer.

“Don’t you want someone who actually knows how to cook?” Keith let himself be pulled along.

“Everyone should know how to cook,” Hunk didn’t slow down, “it’s what separates us from the animals.”

“Okay, but…” Keith had to spread his wings slightly to keep himself from losing his balance as he was pulled around a corner.

“Anyway, I need an honest taste tester,” Hunk pulled him into the kitchen, “Lance is too nice, Shiro has no taste buds, and Pidge won’t sit still long enough.”

“So I’m your last option,” Keith teased.

“Best qualified,” Hunk clarified, “also I trust you not to cut any fingers off while you chop things.”

“That’s fair,” Keith grinned, accepting the knife Hunk handed him.

They spent a little over an hour working amiably on various sweets and snacks, and when Keith was finally released from the task, he was much fuller than when he started and had a bag of some kind of salty sweet snack to stash in his room.

Keith felt like something was a little off when he got back to his room, but he wasn’t sure exactly what until he spotted the pillow on his bed. He didn’t keep any pillows on his bed because he didn’t sleep there, and he knew that one was from his nest.

He set his snacks on his desk and hopped up on his bed, peering into his nest cautiously. He half expected to find Pidge sprawled there, having kicked out the pillow as she flailed around in her sleep. It turned out she really did like the hanging nest, and Keith had been thinking of trying to make her one.

The nest was empty though. The blankets were a little mussed, showing that someone had been there, but nothing seemed out of place.

There was something new though.

Keith realized the pillow had been moved to make room for a large stuffed animal in the shape of the Red Lion. He kicked his boots off and jumped into the nest to get a closer look. It was made of a patchwork of soft materials and large enough to be a pillow on its own. The eyes were embroidered in yellow thread and the mouth turned up in a comfortable smile. Like she was glad to see him.

Someone had put a lot of work into it. Keith rolled onto his back, holding it above his head and examining it from all angles. There was a red ribbon tied around its neck with a note attached that said  _ Happy Nest-Warming _ .

Keith snorted and hugged the lion to his chest. They didn’t hand write things often enough for him to recognize the handwriting, but as far as he knew, Lance was the only one on the team who knew how to sew. He had seen him more than once patching clothes in the commons room. If Lance was involved, there was a distinct possibility that Hunk had been roped into distracting him so Lance could sneak the stuffed animal into his room.

Keith held the lion up again, tracing his fingers over the smiling mouth. Warmth unfolded slowly in his chest. People had nest-warmings for places then intended to stay. There was no point if it was just a stop along the way. Keith rolled onto his side, burying his face into the lion’s soft side.

With the stars glowing gently over his head and sunk comfortably into his pillows and blankets, it didn’t seem so far-fetched that this was what a home was supposed to be like. It felt worth taking a chance on, worth putting effort into, and Keith didn’t regret that he had.


End file.
